Our Research Lab

The BEAHR Lab conducts research that broadly aims to shift the current biomedical paradigm and integrate a human rights approach in mental health policies and practices. Specifically, their research addresses 1) the ethical and medical-legal issues that arise in organized psychiatry because of academic-industry relationships and 2) the ways in which commercialized science reinforces epistemic injustice and undermines an appreciation for the moral and political context of physical and emotional suffering.

Lisa Cosgrove, Ph.D., the BEAHR Lab Director, is a Clinical Psychologist and Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston where she teaches courses on psychiatric diagnosis and psychopharmacology. She was a Research Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University (2010-2015) and served as a consultant to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, child psychiatrist Dainius Puras (2017-2020). Dr. Cosgrove is co-author, with Bob Whitaker, of Psychiatry under the influence: Institutional corruption, social injury and prescriptions for reform. Her recent publications have addressed the ethical issues that arise with the use of digital phenotyping and digital psychotropic drugs.

Over the last 15+ years, Dr. Cosgrove's research on COI issues and institutional corruption has received significant attention in the national and international media (e.g., The New York Times, Washington Post, The Boston Globe, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Medscape, among others). These media outlets have featured articles on her research, as did CBS Radio Canada and Fox News, among others). Additionally, her work on conflict of interest has been featured in documentary films (e.g., Generation RX; the BBC’s Re-Writing the Psychiatrist’s Bible; another BBC documentary, Medicalising Grief; and on RAI, which is the National Public Television of Italy). Dr. Cosgrove and members of the BEAHR Lab have published in high-impact medical journals (e.g., New England Journal of Medicine; the Lancet, the Lancet Psychiatry; Canadian Medical Association Journal, and Annals of Internal Medicine).

The BEAHR Lab Motto: No pressure, only opportunity.

Our TeaM.

Lab Director

Lisa Cosgrove, PhD

Lisa Cosgrove, PhD (she/hers) is a Clinical Psychologist and Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston where she teaches courses on psychiatric diagnosis and psychopharmacology. She was a Research Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University (2010-2015) and served as a consultant to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, child psychiatrist Dainius Puras (2017-2020).

Lab Manager

Gianna D'Ambrozio, LMSW

Gianna D'Ambrozio (she/her) is a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her research interests are in overprescribing psychotropic medications in marginalized and minoritized populations, particularly in children, and alternative therapeutic interventions.

Lab Member

Farahdeba Herrawi, MA

Farahdeba Herrawi (she/her) is a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her research interests are immigrant health and human rights.

Lab Member & Fulbright Fellow

Milutin Kostić, MD, PhD

Milutin Kostić, MD, PhD (he/him) is a psychiatrist from Serbia and the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship for the academic year of 2023-2024. Dr. Kostić's main research focus is overprescribing and medicalization of potentially normal human emotions.

Lab Member

Sarah Gurley-Green, PhD

Sarah Gurley-Green, PhD (she/her) is a researcher in health and death studies. She is the US Ambassador to the Association for the Study of Death and Society. After many years of teaching in health studies programs, Dr. Gurley-Green is taking time to research and pursue an LMHC at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Lab Member

Kaila Pelton-Flavin, BA, BFA

Kaila Pelton-Flavin (she/her) is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan. Her interests include human rights approaches to mental health and conceptions of psychotic experiences.

Lab Member

Tim McCarthy, BA

Tim McCarthy (he/him) is a Master's student in the Mental Health Counseling program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He serves as Director of Case Management and Director of Development for Craig’s Doors A Home Association Inc. His interests include alternative approaches to substance use disorder, the bidirectional relationship between homelessness and mental illness, and the ongoing medicalization of the human experience/condition.

Lab Member

Travis Carl Karas, MEd

Travis Carl Karas (they/them) is currently a second year Master’s student in the Mental Health Counseling Program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Travis’s interests lay in supporting transgender youth, youths in the foster care system, and alternative therapeutic interventions for childhood trauma survivors. Professionally, Travis works at Youth Villages as an in-home therapeutic practitioner.

Lab Member

Jenny Logan, JD, MA

Jenny (all pronouns) is Associate Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and a Ph.D. student in law at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her transdisciplinary research brings together critical law, geography, and psychology to investigate the spatialisation of sexual violence in the contemporary United States.